Bristol has a rich cultural heritage, prosperous economy, world class universities and is consistently ranked as one of the best places to live in the UK. Sustained investment has resulted in large increases in sustainable travel across the city. Public transport use in Bristol has witnessed a rapid increase in recent years compared to decreases in the rest of the country, and more people now cycle to work in Bristol than in Sheffield, Nottingham, Newcastle and Liverpool added together. “Tackling our local transport challenges head on”, says Bristol is Open’s CEO Julie Snell, “will help make us a happier, healthier and economically stronger city that attracts investment and affords a rising quality of life to all of our residents”.
In her opening keynote presentation at TRANSPORT Smart Class, South West England & Wales 2018, Julie told us more about the issues facing Bristol that have transport implications; meeting the city’s ambitious target of zero carbon by 2030; core objectives of Bristol’s Traffic Control Service; and the key role being played by new infrastructure technologies such as hosted UTC/SCOOT & Stratos Common Database System, ANPR based JTMS, CPGVMS, and a mesh network to support low power IoT devices. Julie also explained what Bristol is doing to better utilise the various passenger and traffic data types at its disposal and set out Bristol’s aims for data analysis.
Following this Wednesday’s Smart Class, Bristol City Council’s Gareth Mills and Duncan Venison treated us to a tour of their ‘State of the Art’ SMART City Operations Centre which (as a major driver behind Bristol’s ascent to smartest UK city) brings together and integrates the council’s Emergency Control Centre, Traffic Control Centre and Community Safety (CCTV) Control Rooms with other citizen service providers.
If you’d like to view Julie’s keynote slides, please complete the short download form below: